Numbers 36:5

"And Moses commanded the children of Israel according to the word of Jehovah, saying, The tribe of the sons of Joseph speaketh right. This is the thing which Jehovah doth command concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, saying, Let them be married to whom they think best; only into the family of the tribe of their father shall they be married. So shall no inheritance of the children of Israel remove from tribe to tribe; for the children of Israel shall cleave every one to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers. And every daughter that possesseth an inheritance in any tribe of the children of Israel, shall be wife unto one of the family of the tribe of her father, that the children of Israel may possess every man the inheritance of his fathers. So shall no inheritance remove from one tribe to another tribe; for the tribes of the children of Israel shall cleave every one to his own inheritance."

"The tribe of the sons of Joseph speaketh right ..." (Numbers 36:5). This has the meaning of, "The plea is just."[10] Several of the more recent translations follow this change. The justice of this appeal confirms a number of things:

(1) It is proper and righteous for God's people to be concerned about inheritance.

(2) Every man should be conscious of what he owes to his ancestors and strive in every honorable way to preserve what has been handed down to him through them.

(3) In the matter of the perpetuation of the common good, even such personal things as marriage should conform to the pattern of benefiting the perpetuation of the common wealth. This, of course, has an application that requires Christians to marry "in the faith." Henry spoke of marriages that are contracted solely upon the basis of self-gratification and foolish ungovernable passion in defiance of authority and without regard for the results, saying that, "They are against common sense, the interests of society, the happiness of the marriage relation, and what is still more evil, against the religion of Christ."[11]

Numbers 36:8-9 here have the effect of extending this law concerning the inalienability of tribal land, and the requirement for heiresses to marry within the tribe of their fathers, "into a general law for every heiress in Israel."[12]

It is sadly true, however, that God's laws were not strictly followed by Israel in this instance (nor in any other, for that matter), and, as Gray noted, "The theory frequently failed in practice."[13] This surely seems to have been the case, "For the same cities are sometimes represented as belonging to different tribes. Dibon is Gadite in Numbers 32:34, but Reubenite in Joshua 13:17, Heshbon is Reubenite in Numbers 32:37, but Gadite in Joshua 21:39. Hormah belongs to Judah in Joshua 15:30, but to Simeon in Joshua 19:4."[14] All of these instances cited by Wade, however, are irrelevant, because there is no evidence that the lands east of Jordan (where Reuben and Gad settled) came under the same rules as applied to the Promised Land. Furthermore, the tribes of Judah and Simeon seem to have inherited a large section jointly, thus making it proper to say, in some instances, perhaps, that a certain place belonged to either. Without regard to this, however, in the times of the monarchy, the ruthless, greedy kings of the Chosen People utterly rejected the principle of the inalienability of tribal or ancestral lands. The case of Ahaz and Jezebel in their violent seizure of Naboth's vineyard is an example.